A shoulder support of this type is described in French patent FR 2 659 163 filed in the name of the applicant. Basically, it includes a support piece intended to be in contact with the shoulder and secured to an arm, preferably in an adjustable manner. This latter itself is secured to the base of a chin rest through a connection which may be taken apart. The base of the chin rest is formed by a stirrup which bears the adjustable connection and the chin rest itself and which is clamped respectively against the back plate and the top plate of the violin.
The support thus enables holding the violin solely by squeezing such support between the chin and the shoulder of the performer, thus very comfortably for the latter, without requiring him to intervene with his left hand, which thus remains entirely free in order to pass from one position to another on the finger board of the violin.
Although in practice this known support generally gives satisfaction, it exhibits some drawbacks. Effectively, if the violin must be stowed in its case, necessitating the separation of the arm and the stirrup, a key must be employed of the six-sided type for example since the connection between the arm and the stirrup implies fastening by a screw and nut. This signifies that the user must always have available such a tool subject to loss or to be forgotten somewhere. Furthermore, the head of the screw or nut employed for fastening the arm to the stirrup constitutes a projecting portion at the base of the arm of the shoulder support. The presence of such projecting part causes extra thickness which may be bothersome.
Effectively, in traditional employment, that is to say, without use of a shoulder support, the space available for the instrument between the chin and the shoulder of the violinist is already very limited. Under these conditions, a shoulder support arrangement must, in order to give satisfaction, be of a design which occasions only a minimum space requirement under the back plate of the violin. The extra thickness described hereinabove can consequently constitute a redhibitory defect, at least for certain musicians.
The invention has as its purpose to overcome the two difficulties which have just been described in providing a shoulder support in which the securing of the arm to the stirrup may on the one hand be dismounted without tools and, on the other hand, does not occasion an extra thickness against the back plate of the violin.